Tell us a little about yourselves!
We’re an international couple and we have spent much of our relationship living on different continents (Jeanne in New York and Singapore, and Folarin in Morocco, France, and London). Folarin considers himself to be pretty laid back, with a variety of interests and hobbies as well as a demanding career. He’s very family oriented and keeps a wide social circle since socializing is the number one among his list of interests. Jeanne loves thrifting (after all, she thrifted all of her wedding dresses) and is currently working on a few entrepreneurial ventures while pursuing her MBA at Columbia Business School.
In August 2018, we crossed path twice before we eventually connected, first on Facebook, second time, we were both in large groups of friends and third time lucky we met at a Yacht week party. We stayed in touch for years until 2021 when we found ourselves both living in Singapore during the pandemic.
During our time in Singapore, we both confirmed our suspicions that there was potential for a lot more than friendship. By 2022 we were officially dating, 2023 engaged and 2024 married.
We both are avid travellers and aspiring mixologists (We know, we’re very basic at heart). We both live very hectic lives filled with lots of travel, eating out and exploring but we share many shared interests such as cocktail bars, outdoor activities, beaches, family and sustainable living. (Although we both have different interpretations of sustainability).
Our wedding was a mesh of cultures Jeanne being American, Folarin being Nigerian British. We also tried to bring elements of our lives from France, Morocco and Singapore to the wedding as well as the important people we had met along the way.
Why did you decide to get married where you did?
Picking the country to get married was an exercise in pragmatism. Jeanne’s must haves were a beautiful wedding venue, accessible flights for our guests, and guaranteed good weather. Clearly the UK was ruled out for obvious reasons. Folarin’s wishes were a venue big enough to host his large group of family and friends and access to Nigerian food for the Nigerian wedding. We considered Portugal, France, Italy, Spain, Greece and Croatia.
Once we settled on Lisbon we decided to visit venues, we visited roughly 10 venues in 2 days with Casa das Gaeiras winning out due to the beauty of the location, the abundance of accommodation for guests in the vicinity, the great weather and the ability to bring our own catering, as we needed to serve Nigerian food at the Trad.
How many guests did you have?
We had roughly 220 guests for each of the 2 days.
What was your budget?
Our initial budget was 60,000 Euros however, we’re not sure how close to this we ended up.
Tell us about your outfits.
For the traditional Nigerian ceremony we were starting with a blank slate, we had to pick colours for ourselves as the bride and groom, our bridal train, our parents, and finally for our guests… and these colours all had to complement each other. To make matters more challenging, in keeping with Nigerian traditions, our outfits were to be hand woven in Nigeria.
The inspiration for outfits was limitless, Instagram and TikTok are full of outfits in every design and colour imaginable. Folarin had seen a shade of blue which he really liked but it was quite hard to articulate to the tailor who then had to explain it to the weavers. After the first attempt, we felt that the shade of blue we had was too dark, so we opted for a second sample but due to timing, we had to give it the green light without even seeing the sample. For our second outfits, we both found the burnt orange mix by chance one evening and even though it is not usual to wear two hand woven outfits, we decided to indulge ourselves a little and go with both the blue and the orange. The tailors then did their magic to rush our outfits together in super quick time through a series of virtual fittings.
For the “White” wedding ceremony (it is called the White wedding because of the white dress), we were inspired by the outdoor nature of the wedding, floral colours and plenty of sun meant we wanted to wear bright colours.
Jeanne thrifted all her dresses:
Dress 1: 90s Vera Wang dress (the one with bows on the sleeves). Jeanne had been searching for this dress for a year, and then 2 weeks before the wedding she found it on StillWhite. The seller had just dropped it off to the dry cleaner and told me she could send it in a few weeks. Jeanne told her the urgency, and she picked it up from the dry cleaners the next day and had it shipped from Canada to New York overnight. Jeanne’s seamstress made alterations, and the dry cleaner was able to clean it in a few days. Given the addition of this dress, she now had 3 dresses and wasn’t sure when to wear each of them. Jeanne made a last-minute decision on the day to decide which one she wore for private vows, the ceremony, and dinner/after party. This one ended up being used for the private vows.
Dress 2: 90s Vera Wang dress (the one with pinstripes that Jeanne wore for the ceremony). Jeanne had everyone hunting for the perfect vintage dress. Her mom first came across the dress in our local consignment store in Chestnut Hill, PA. She sent me a picture and Jeanne decided I wanted to see it in person. She liked it, but it felt too soon to decide as she hadn’t viewed any dresses yet. Eventually, Jeanne went to Philly to try on the dress, she liked it when it was on but was tired and her mom thought I wasn’t really feeling it. Immediately when we left the store Jeanne told her that was the one. She was shocked because I didn’t have that much excitement in the store, plus it was too small. Jeanne was convinced that her mom didn’t try hard enough to zip it up and she had to go back to New York that evening, so she asked her to go back to the store the next day to pick it up and we had to hope that the tailor could make it work. Sure enough, it couldn’t zip up. We took it to the tailor and there was about a ¼ inch of fabric that he could use to take it out a bit; he needed 2 months to do it because of how complicated it was to take apart the dress. My tailor ended up doing an amazing job.
Dress 3: The party dress Jeanne wore for dinner and dancing. Jeanne found an image of this dress online and saw that the designer is in New York, so she figured she would go to her studio to try it on. Jeanne made an appointment and when she got to the studio, she found out that the designer is no longer making wedding dresses because her seamstress retired, and she had just sold the last one. So, Jeanne went to Google and reverse image searched the dress, and she ended up finding this dress again on StillWhite. The seller told Jeanne that she was obsessed with the dress and bought the last one from the designer, it was the one used on the runway, however her wedding venue location changed, and the vibe of the dress no longer made sense, so she decided to sell it.
Jeanne was worried about the dress fitting, but took the risk and it ended up fitting perfectly and didn’t even need any alternations. Jeanne’s biggest regret is not getting more photos of this dress as it ended up being her favorite one!
Folarin had the advantage of knowing a lot about suits beforehand. Jeanne had expressed a desire to see him in a double breast suit at some point through the wedding weekend, and he kindly obliged. Knowing he wanted something light and classic but not colourful or garish, he opted for a taupe double-breasted suit with low buttons which gave a more classic silhouette. He matched the suit with gold cufflinks which were a graduation present from his Mum, a white shirt from old faithful Charles Trywhitt personalized with a monogram of Folarin & Jeanne’s initials, and an off-white Valentino tie from Vestiare, inspired by chance when suit shopping.
For the evening Folarin again wanted a classic tuxedo with peak lapels. He initially bought a tuxedo in NY. The suit was Italian made and was a very lightweight suit which was perfect for the anticipated hot Lisbon sun. However, the suit was delivered to Jeanne’s apartment in NY where she “accidentally” opened the delivery and expressed some concerns about the fit and the fabric of the suit and suggested Folarin search for a backup, so back to the drawing board. (Once tried on, Jeanne admitted that the tux was indeed beautiful)
Folarin shopped again for a suit in NY, with less than a month to the wedding he had very limited time to shop. Luckily Jeanne and Folarin had both been inspired by a modern classic of a black linen tuxedo with strong broad lapels and a shiny texture which could look both silver and black depending on the lighting. On the wedding day, Folarin was hoping to wear both tuxes but the packed agenda meant his plans were a little ambitious and he ended up wearing only the linen tux. Folarin paired the tuxedo with a tuxedo shirt from Charles Trywhitt, and an oversize bowtie from John Lewis.
For shoes, Folarin wore a number of coordinated specials over the course of the weekend, in particular he wore a pair of velvet, cobalt blue Giuseppe Zanotti slippers (Shout out Burna Boy) and his favorite pair of shoes were the Churches velvet slippers which Folarin found as the last pair sold in the UK, both an homage to his love for classic British shoemakers, and the love of Churches slippers among Nigerians.
What was the most important aspect for you, in terms of planning your wedding?
For both of us, I think family, and a merging of our cultures were very important. For Jeanne: Outdoor wedding, fun spirited, a great photographer. (We totally nailed it!) For Folarin: The music, party and food all had to be top quality. Also wanted to ensure as much of his friends could attend at possible.
Were there any elements that were important for you to incorporate?
Some of our shared loves are Afrobeats, food, our America, British and Nigerian heritages.
We sprinkled these throughout the two days even as early on as the website where we linked a playlist (Spotify: Tradlist) to introduce all our guests to our upbeat music tastes.
Throughout the events we ensured that guests were able to feel included such as organizing Nigerian outfits for those who were interested and the American jumping of the broom tradition which took Folarin by surprise during out wedding ceremony.
Inclusivity was an important aspect of the day, despite a 200+ person wedding, it was important that our guests felt a level of intimacy, we tried to achieve this through adding games to each table to help our guests mix and we spent a lot of time on seating arrangements to ensure that every guest was with some familiar and some new faces.
Any tips for couples getting married?
Enjoy the day, it goes so fast, and you put in so much work but if you commit to having fun no matter what, everything will fall in place even better than you have imagined.
Lean on your friends and family, they have all come to support and celebrate you, they are all willing to help you achieve your vision if you let them. Take a step back and take the time to think about which tasks you can delegate out to free up time and energy for your top priorities.
Don’t underestimate the stress – Take the stress you imagine you’ll be under during the planning process, and double it at least… It really can be difficult at times during the process
Prioritize – Our planner told us, “First thing people will notice is the food, second is the décor”. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the details but prioritize according to what is most important to you and what is time/cost sensitive.
Are there any vendors that you would like to tell us a little more about?
All of our vendors were amazing but some went above and beyond our expectations to deliver a vision we could never have imagined.
Our photographer Jimena (Volvoreta ) – A truly gifted, visionary artist and story teller.
Stationery – Shama Johns Art – Another artist with so much dedication and passion.
Mariana from Portugal West– Our biggest supporter, she understood our interpretations, organized our chaos and delivered the dream.
DJ Waves – The party started and ended with our legendary DJ who was serenading our guests throughout the weekend.
Photographer: Volvoreta @Volvoreta | Planning: Portugal West @portugalwestweddings
@marianasimoes.rochas | Flora: Helia Arte Floral @heliaartefloral | Videographer: Everglow Films @everglow_films | Ceremony & Reception Location: Casa das Gaeiras @casadasgaeiras | Makeup:
Balu | Catering, Cake & Beverages: Eventtus Catering @eventtuscatering | Stationery: Shama Johns Art @shamajohnsart | Entertainment: DJ Waves, Kenny Caetano (Sax), Catarina Ferriera (Violin), Shane Afolabi (MC) @dj_waves_@kennycaetano @catxuna @shane.drama | Dresses: Custom made in Nigeria & Vintage Vera Wang